Top Essays USB Drive

This USB drive contains 100 of the top This I Believe audio broadcasts of the last ten years, plus some favorites from Edward R. Murrow's radio series of the 1950s. It's perfect for personal or classroom use! Click here to learn more.

You shouldn’t ever, and I mean NEVER EVER, have to please anyone, but yourself. It’s just a waste of time because not everyone’s always going to be happy with you or like the things you do. You see, I’ve spent most of my time trying to please people, making them like me, but now I don’t care anymore. I’m just going to be me, and if you don’t like it, well, that’s too bad. I’m not here to please you, or anyone else. My life is quite complicated perhaps in different ways than yours, but still complicated.

When you see my family from the outside, we look like the perfect family off a TV series. Well, at least that’s what I’m told. Take a closer look, and you’ll see what I mean by we have our own problems. Both of my brothers are mentally ill. My oldest brother is twenty and functions at the age of a nine year old. My youngest brother is nine and functions like a two year old. So in order to understand them, you have to become them, look on the other side. It’s a lot to take in mentally and physically.

So it really irritates me when my “friends” of FOUR YEARS tell me that I’m a spoiled rotten brat because I have nice things. It bugs me even more when they tell me, “You’re like that because your parents do everything for you.” What I want to know is how they figure that, when I live in a household of six and I’m trying to help my brothers. You really think my parents have the time “To do everything for me”? Seriously? But not all of my friends are rude and arrogant. They think, “You’re always lying” and make me look really dumb in front of people. Or if somebody tells me something awful, they don’t defend me. They just agree with that other person, and then say, “Well, you know it’s true.”

I don’t know. Maybe now is the time to walk away from them or maybe I should just start avoiding them and let everything fade away. Deep down I know avoiding them is being selfish and childish, so maybe I should just confront them and tell them how awful I feel when they treat me like that.

Just do me a favor because your life is short and unpredictable. Live life at its greatest. Do what you want to do, and don’t care what other people think. And if people tell you what you do is crazy or weird, just say, “I like the way I do things, and I don’t care if you or anyone else thinks what I do is different or weird, because I’m not here to please you.” People might try to hurt you, but it’s just so they can feel better about themselves.

People who run on fuel like that aren’t the kind of people you want in your life.

Essay of the Week

When she was young, Lauren LeBlanc had grand dreams of living in New York and singing on Broadway. Instead, she became a mom and schoolteacher in suburbia. While it’s not the life she once imagined, LeBlanc now knows she wouldn’t have it any other way. Click here to read her essay.